Chapter 156: Blue Flames of Betrayal
The hunter James came running in, out of breath.
His entire body was covered in horrific burns and wounds. The leather of his jacket had melted into the skin of his forearm in long black seams. At the gruesome sight, Elma shot up from her seat, the chair scraping back behind her, her face frozen in shock.
"J-James?! What on earth happened to..."
"Chief, you have to get out of here, now!"
"What? Get out of here?"
What was he suddenly talking about?
Elma looked at him, bewildered.
Then a thought struck her.
"Don’t tell me...!"
Had the White Whale already arrived?
No, that was impossible.
According to the information she had seen just hours ago, the White Whale was currently in the Greenland Sea.
’Unless it can teleport, there’s no way it could cross that kind of distance in an instant.’
This probably wasn’t about the White Whale.
Just as she reached that conclusion.
James, still gasping for breath, spoke with a face hardened like stone.
"Edward has risen in revolt."
"...!?"
"Th-that madman finally...!"
Just as he was about to shout once more.
Blue flames suddenly erupted around James. The instant James and Elma noticed, their eyes flying wide open.
Fwoosh!
James’s body was engulfed in flames.
Then came a horrific scream.
"Aaaaaaargh!"
James writhed on the floor in agony.
Horrified, Elma thrust her hand toward him and cast a water-attribute skill.
"...!? Water!"
Splooooosh!
A massive sphere of water formed in midair.
The ice-cold mass of water instantly poured down over James’s body like a waterfall. Mercifully, the flames were extinguished in moments.
But that aside, James, already covered in terrible burns, sank to his knees on the floor.
"Guh! Ngh..."
James let out groans thick with pain.
Before long, he lost consciousness.
And at that moment.
"A madman? Now, is that any way to talk?"
From beyond the wide-open door.
Came the sound of many footsteps.
What soon came into view were a dozen or so hunters. At their head, the very man who had set James ablaze curled his lips into a sneer.
"You’ll hurt a guy’s feelings, you know."
"...Edward."
That swaggering attitude and tone.
Seeing how completely his demeanor had changed from just yesterday, Elma’s face went rigid.
"What is the meaning of..."
"Can’t you tell just by looking? Sharp as you are, I figured you’d get the picture without me spelling it out."
Edward smirked.
Wearing that mocking grin, he made a show of sitting down in the chair across from Elma. Then he propped both feet up on the table and said,
"This shelter is ours now."
"...!"
"We’ve cleared out everyone who got in the way, too. There’s not a single bastard left standing in our path."
Except for one person. Elma.
Edward’s eyes glinted ominously.
Meanwhile, Elma rose from her seat, her face contorted as she glared straight at him.
"...Why would you do this?"
Elma couldn’t understand it.
At a time when even every hunter working together wouldn’t be enough, why on earth would he do something like this?
"Why...!?"
"Ha. Drop the act."
At that moment.
Edward wore a cold sneer. Cutting Elma off, he shot back with a hardened face.
"You already know, don’t you?"
"What are you..."
"That this world went to hell a long time ago."
"..."
The world had ended.
At those words, Elma pressed her lips shut.
Because she couldn’t bring herself to argue.
"Ever since the Antarctica gate broke open, the temperature’s been dropping by the day. Gates are appearing more often, and their ranks keep climbing."
Edward wasn’t wrong.
The most fatal part of it all was that the temperature kept falling. The proof: in a mere half year, the average temperature had dropped by more than 18 degrees.
Meanwhile, the number of survivors shrank with each passing day, while monsters ran rampant.
By any measure, the situation was hopeless.
"Give it a little more time and we’ll all freeze to death together, nice and cozy. So shouldn’t we enjoy everything we can before we die?"
Edward shrugged.
Nothing he said about their current situation was wrong, but that aside, Elma had no intention of agreeing with his argument.
’Even if a tragic end awaits us...’
Let us die as human beings, to the very last.
That was the conviction that had held Elma up all this time. Drawing in a deep breath, she turned her question to the hunters standing behind Edward.
"...Do all of you feel the same way?"
Despite the reproach in her gaze.
The hunters answered with shameless faces.
"Well, pretty much, yeah."
"If we’re gonna croak either way, might as well do everything we want before we go."
"Otherwise it’d just be too damn unfair, right?"
Despair washed over her at their answers.
The hunters before her were the shelter’s core fighting force, every one of them. The very pillars who should have been holding the shelter up had all thrown in with Edward’s greed.
At last, Elma understood.
There was no turning back anymore.
"...Fine."
"What?"
"Do whatever you want."
With a sigh heavy with resignation.
Elma’s shoulders slumped. At that, Edward arched an eyebrow and replied,
"Surprising. Giving in this easily..."
"I don’t care who runs the shelter. That doesn’t matter to me. But I have one condition."
"A condition?"
"The non-Awakened we agreed to transfer to the Coral Cave. Send them as planned."
The elderly, sixty and up.
And the children around ten years old.
If Edward seized real control of the shelter, what would become of them was plain as day.
That was why Elma wanted to save their lives, at the very least. But the moment she finished her request, Edward burst into raucous laughter.
"Pfft, ah, those parasites?"
A voice dripping with ridicule.
An expression steeped in contempt.
At his reaction, Elma’s heart plummeted. And just as an ominous feeling crept in.
"You’re too late for that."
"...Too late? What do you mean?"
"We disposed of them all at dawn today."
"What...?"
Disposed? What was he talking about?